'Premier' Donor Eggs Command High Prices for Desirable Genes

— -- Wendy Gerrish walked into an exam room at the California Fertility Partners in Los Angeles to prepare for her 11th-day ultrasound. She had been going there almost every day for the previous week.

Gerrish, a 33-year-old acupuncturist with a master's degree in integrative medicine, is not pregnant. She is donating her eggs for the seventh time. She said a couple overseas is paying her $20,000 for her donation.

To date, Gerrish’s donated eggs have resulted in 10 biological children all over the world and she has a son of her own.

More and more women are delaying childbirth into their 40s, and when their own eggs are no longer viable, some shop for donors like Gerrish through egg agencies.

Egg agencies pair desperate couples with young women willing to help them create a baby -- for a price. It’s become a highly competitive and lucrative marketplace.

Shelley Smith runs a Los Angeles-based egg agency called the Egg Donor Program and boasts a catalog of what she says are the most beautiful and accomplished donors, what Smith calls “premier donors.”

“Premier donors get a little bit higher fee, and it’s usually based on higher education, great SAT scores,” Smith said. “When we put up a really beautiful donor who is also probably smart and has other qualities, we get calls immediately. I call it the ‘feeding frenzy.’”

She has added around six new donors to her site every week and only accepts 5 percent of donors who apply, Smith said.

“No one ever comes in and says, ‘I really want a dumb, ugly donor,’” she said.

When asked if what her agency is doing is unethical or if it’s just serving to create “designer babies,” Smith denies that’s the case.

“I don’t think these are ‘designer babies,’” she said. "If you think about it, when you pick someone to marry, you are picking the genetics for your child as well. ... Why can’t you kind of look for those qualities in an egg donor who is going to help you build your family?”

Some donors demand as much as $50,000 for their eggs -- Smith said the highest price any of her donors had received was $100,000.

“I will admit that I've had a couple of donors do it just for the money, but I felt like they weren't going to feel badly afterwards,” Smith said. “You really want it to be both, because that's what makes somebody feel good later in life.”

Ethical guidelines set by the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) say compensating a donor over $10,000 is not appropriate. Dr. Eric Widra, a fertility specialist in Washington, D.C., agrees and believes a cap on compensation is needed because otherwise it can create “inappropriate incentives for women to donate where perhaps they’re not really donating for altruistic reasons.”

"When you start to have women doing it just because the price is so attractive, we worry that they’re exposing themselves to risks that they might not otherwise be comfortable with, however small, just because the price is right," Widra said. "And we worry that creates additional incentives to be untruthful or unrealistic. ... Untruthful about their history or unrealistic about the expectations of going through treatment.”